Maybe the Guardians have gone rogue millions of times in the last few BILLION years. Maybe we are on Oa #1,000,000 now. Every generation of GLs think this is the first time this sh*t has happened to them. It's like, how many times has the JLA watchtower or the Avengers mansion blown up? How many times does Captain America have to give up being Cap while someone takes up the mantle before everyone around him gets that it's a joke?

The should do a parody story showing how Oa is revealed to have been destroyed millions of times, like Groundhog Day. And the Guardians just kind of accepted it long ago.

Heck, I could see them doing that as a serious story (not that I would want it), where we learn that the Guardians have been trying to do their thing for billions of years, but have failed over and over again and had to start over, but just constructed elaborate lies and manipulations to cover over the many times a GLC (or GLC-like organization) has failed, and present the appearance of billions of years of continuous, unbroken service.

Really the Manhunters were just the one instance where they failed so spectacularly that the coverup couldn't hold, so they spun it into a one-time thing.

Heck, I could see them doing that as a serious story (not that I would want it), where we learn that the Guardians have been trying to do their thing for billions of years, but have failed over and over again and had to start over, but just constructed elaborate lies and manipulations to cover over the many times a GLC (or GLC-like organization) has failed, and present the appearance of billions of years of continuous, unbroken service.

Really the Manhunters were just the one instance where they failed so spectacularly that the coverup couldn't hold, so they spun it into a one-time thing.

Yeah! I like that! The Manhunters weren't their greatest failure, just one of the few times their dirty laundry got aired in public.

Hell, how about the Guardians aren't even immortal? That is just their public image? That they are a race that has been maintaining the GLC to varying degrees of success for only thousands of years, and the billions of years thing is just propaganda? Their being immortal turning out to be a lie would be hilarious.

The Guardians not being immortal could be pulled off, too, especially if you say that really there a whole secret planet of them someplace, and the council that everybody sees is just the group selected to maintain the fiction. When somebody on the council retires or dies, they pick a replacement, have them go by the same name, and alter their appearance as necessary to maintain the illusion (heck, to most races the Guardians probably all look alike, anyway).

I'd hate that direction, like I'd hate the Guardians as deceptive serial failures just putting on a show, but it COULD be done. I don't know that it would be any worse than what Geoff did to the Guardians (it actually seems kind of like more of the same thing, really).

Hell, how about the Guardians aren't even immortal? That is just their public image? That they are a race that has been maintaining the GLC to varying degrees of success for only thousands of years, and the billions of years thing is just propaganda? Their being immortal turning out to be a lie would be hilarious.

That's not a bad idea, but after so many years of Geoff Johns doing "Everything you thought was true is WRONG!" type of fare... maybe we shouldn't do that.